


The Story Continues

by Alixtii



Category: The Neverending Story (Movies)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Fantasy, Heroine's Journey, Imagination, Mention of Canon Mind Control, Metafiction, Nightmares, POV Female Character, POV Third Person Limited, Past Tense, Teen Romance, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-02 08:49:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14541090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alixtii/pseuds/Alixtii
Summary: When Bastian is kidnapped and brought back to Fantasia, Nicole must team up with Atreyu to rescue him. (Basically my version of whatThe NeverEnding Story IVcould be like.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Most of this was written in 2012. I thought it was about time I polished it off and let someone else see it.

Her mother glanced over at her from the driver's seat of their minivan. “I know you're worried about your brother,” Jane Bux said. “But we'll find him, I promise.”

But Nicole Baxter was a child of divorce. She knew just how much her parents’ promises were worth when they met the harsh reality of the world. She knew there was only one surefire way of finding out where Bastion was and why he had gone missing.

“I know,” she lied as she unfastened her seat belt, opened the minivan door, and made her way to the school.

She made her way through the halls of school towards the library, doing her best to avoid the students milling around at their lockers, only to see Slip approaching her, flanked by Dog and Mookie.

“We heard about Bastian,” Slip said, concerned. 

She always felt strange around Slip and his friends. Only she and Bastian remembered that they had once been a band of bullies called the Nasties, before she had used _The NeverEnding Story_ to rewrite reality and turn them into a clique of well-meaning geeks. They were certainly much easier to get along with now, but Nicole couldn’t help but be aware of the artificiality of their imposed personae, how she and Bastian had taken away their free will, and it always made her deeply uncomfortable.

“Do you have any idea where he might be?” Dog asked. “Did your parents call the police?”

“No and yes, respectively,” Nicole said, looking around them. “Look, I really need to get to the library. I have a bio assignment for Miss Kezler due first period, and I need to look something up.”

“But your brother,” Mookie interjected, clearly confused.

“I need to go,” Nicole repeated, and broke through them, headed towards the library. She couldn’t worry about Slip and Dog and Mookie, not now, not today, not when her brother was missing.

There was only one thing she could think about right now: that she didn’t know where Bastian was, and there was only one surefire way to find out.

“Mr. Koriander?” she called out as she entered the school library, but there was no reply. “Mr. Koriander?” she called again, but when the school librarian didn’t answer, she made her way to the Reference section and pulled _The NeverEnding Story_ off the shelf. Quickly, she opened it near the end.

> _Her mother glanced over at her from the driver's seat of their minivan. “I know you're worried about your brother,” Jane Bux said. “But we'll find him, I promise.”_

Okay, that was only a few minutes ago, too far ahead for what she needed. She flipped back a few more pages, until she reached the last time she had seen Bastian, then started reading.

> _”Are you really going to stay up all night reading?” a familiar female voice asked._
> 
> _Bastian looked up from his book to see his stepsister Nicole standing in his bedroom doorway. She had gone out with her friends Samantha and Rachel, and was still wearing her dressy outfit. He glanced at the clock next his bed. Past eleven._
> 
> _“What else is one going to do on a Friday night?” he asked with a shrug._
> 
> _“Only you,” Nicole said, shaking her head, but the smile on her face was affectionate, not scornful. “Good night, dweeb,” she said, then headed to her own room._
> 
> _“Night, Nic,” he said, turning his attention back to the book and quickly becoming absorbed in it again. So absorbed he didn’t even notice when a man appeared in his bedroom. If he had, the man would have seemed to appear right out of thin air._
> 
> _“Bastian Balthazar Bux,” the man said, his voice low and gravelly, and Bastian quickly looked up from his book, startled. “How did you get in here?” he asked. “Who are you?”_
> 
> _”Do you not recognize me, boy?” the man asked with an almost feral smile._
> 
> _“No,” Bastian said, although there was something about the man, his voice and his smile, which did seem familiar to Bastian. But any familiarity which he felt was not a source of comfort. On the contrary, it filled him with an uneasy sense of dread._
> 
> _“No matter,” said the man, taking a step toward Bastian. “All will be made clear soon enough.”_
> 
> _Bastian instinctively pulled away from the man, inching away from him on the bed, but he wasn’t fast enough. The man’s arm shot out and grabbed Bastian by the wrist, and then suddenly the bedroom around them begin to dissolve._
> 
> _They were passing through worlds, Bastian realized. And as they did, the man began to transform, from human to beast. “Now do you recognize me?” the beast asked in a thundering growl._
> 
> _“Gmork,” Bastian said, with horror-filled recognition._

Nicole physically flinched as she read the words. Bastian had told her about Gmork, the fearsome beast which his friend Atreyu had faced shortly before Bastian’s first voyage to Fantasia. Gmork had wanted to kill Atreyu, to end _The NeverEnding Story_ forever and keep Bastian from traveling to Fantasia to give the Empress a new name. But Atreyu had killed Gmork.

> _“But you’re dead,” Bastian said. “Atreyu killed you! I read it in_ The NeverEnding Story _.”_
> 
> _“That was in the old Fantasia, which was consumed by the Nothing,” Gmork answered. “But then you recreated Fantasia--with your wishes and dreams, but also your fears. Did you really think you could bring back Fantasia without bringing back me as well? ”_
> 
> _“You cannot shine a light,” another voice cut in, “without casting a shadow. The Childlike Empress would have done well to remember that when she turned to you for aid.”_
> 
> _“Who are you?” asked Bastian._
> 
> _“You may call me the Nihilist,” the man said._

”The Nihilist?” Nicole couldn’t help exclaiming to herself, incredulously. “Who comes up with these names?”

> _"You won't get away with this," Bastian said._
> 
> _"Oh?" asked the Nihilist. "And who is going to stop me? You, human? The Childlike Empress? Her boy champion?"_
> 
> _"We fought back the Nothing," Bastian answered defiantly. "We triumphed over the Nasty, defeated Xayide and the Emptiness--"_
> 
> _“Xayide was a fool,” the Nihilist said dismissively, “as bad as the Childlike Empress herself. She sought to rule Fantasia--a worthless, infantile ambition.”_
> 
> _“Oh?” said Bastian. “And what do you want, then?”_
> 
> _“It does not matter what I want,” the Nihilist said. “It only matters what we will do--and we will transform Fantasia, reveal it for what it really is, not this saccharine children’s story the Empress would have it be.”_
> 
> _“Fantasia is good,” Bastian protested. “It is good and beautiful and wonderful.”_
> 
> _“Is it?” asked the Nihilist. “We shall see. Come with me, boy.”_
> 
> _“What if I refuse?” Bastian asked._
> 
> _The Nihilist shrugged. “Then I will have Gmork drag you.” Gmork responded by emitting a pleased-sounding growl._
> 
> _Bastian followed the Nihilist through the caves until they reached a large chamber with a hovering shimmer of flame at the other end of it._
> 
> _“What is that?”_
> 
> _“That,” answered the Nihilist, “is the Nightmare Vortex. Look into it, Bastian. Stare into the vortex.”_
> 
> _Bastian tried to look away, but found he could not. His attention was fixed on the pulsating light and darkness emanating from the Vortex. He felt himself getting lost in the mesmerizing coruscation. Then, without warning, a massive reptilian form emerged from the Vortex: a huge winged snake, its terrible maw lined with incredibly sharp fangs._
> 
> _“The Nightmare Vortex has the power to give physical form to your deepest fears,” the Nihilist explained to Bastian. “With it, we shall transform Fantasia from a world of dreams into a world of nightmares.”_

Nicole skimmed through the next few paragraphs of the _The NeverEnding Story_ , which detailed how they had found Bastian's bedroom empty the next morning, and had spent the entire weekend unable to find him. She turned the page, and read that she had come to school, had bumped into Slip, Dog, and Mookie, and found _The NeverEnding Story_ in the library and began reading it. It was these times when she tried very hard not to think too deeply about the recursivity.

Eventually, she came to a part which was not about herself.

> _In the center of her throne room, attended by her handmaidens, stood the Childlike Empress. Her eyes were distant, as if her attention was far, far away._
> 
> _At least, she spoke. “I know you can hear me, Nicole.” The Empress’ voice was soft but firm. “Even now you are reading the pages of_ The NeverEnding Story _. You have learned how your brother has been kidnapped by the Nihilist and Gmork. To rescue him, and save Fantasia from the Nightmare Vortex, you must come here to Fantasia, and undertake a great and dangerous quest.”_

”As you command, Empress,” Nicole said out loud, trusting that the Empress would somehow be able to hear her without knowing quite how. “What must I do?”

> _”Close your eyes,” said the Empress._

Nicole closed her eyes. “Welcome to Fantasia, Nicole,” she heard, and opened her eyes to find herself in a grand throne room, surrounded by handmaidens and standing across from a young woman in a diaphanous gown who could only have been the Childlike Empress herself.

 _I’m really here,_ Nicole realized. _I’ve travelled to Fantasia. I’m at the top of the Ivory Tower._ Out the window, she could see a vista of beautiful landscape painted in improbable colors which seemed to go on for miles. 

“It is a shame that your first visit here must be made under such unfortunate circumstances,” the Empress continued. “But it is of extreme importance that we save Bastian from his fate.”

Nicole examined the Empress: somehow all at once youthful, eternal, and ageless, her face both innocent and wise, her eyes one moment blue, then brown, the next moment the deepest gold. Her figure was the androgyne body of a prepubescent girl; then Nicole blinked, and saw the fully female form of a girl in late adolescence. Somehow the Empress seemed to effortlessly encompass all of these contradictions and more, just by the nature of her being. 

“You’re in love with him.” Nicole wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. 

The Empress’s expression was neither quite a smile, nor quite a frown--appropriate for someone whose very being was infused with paradox. “What does a Dream feel towards her Dreamer?” she asked, her voice soft, almost wistful. “All that I am I owe to Bastian. He has given me my name. He fought back the Nothing, remade my vast empire from a mere grain of sand. He saved us from the Emptiness, and from the Nasty.” 

_Yeah,_ thought Nicole. _You’ve really got a problem with abstracted forces of destruction here in Fantasia._

The Empress looked into Nicole’s eyes. “You _must_ find him and free him, Nicole. All of Fantasia depends upon it.”

Nicole nodded. “You can rely on me to do whatever it takes, Empress.” After all, he was her brother.

The Empress smiled. “Of this,” she said, “I do not doubt.” 

“At least the Nihilist explained his plan to Bastian so I could read about it in _The NeverEnding Story_. He’s as bad as a Bond villain.”

The Empress cocked her head, confused. “A what?”

“Never mind,” Nicole said. “It’s not important.”

The Empress nodded, soberly. “You will not be alone on your quest. I have sent for our greatest warrior to accompany you on your quest.” She nodded to one of her handmaidens, and a boy was ushered into the room. He was about Nicole’s age, maybe sixteen years old. He had long, dark black hair, and was dressed in brown leather.

“Atreyu,” Nicole greeted him. He was unmistakable from Bastian’s descriptions.

He examined her appraisingly. “You are the sister of Bastian?”

Nicole nodded. “Yeah. Well, stepsister.”

The Childlike Empress stepped forward. “I would send the Auryn with you, but I cannot risk it falling into the Nihilist’s hands. If he captures the Auryn, not only will Bastian’s every fear become real, but they will have total freedom to travel from our world to yours, Nicole. It would be the end of both our worlds. You must rely on your love of Bastian to guide you and protect you.” She looked from Nicole to Atreyu and back again. “Both of you. In the end it may yet prove more powerful even than Auryn itself.”

The Empress’s blue-brown-gold eyes seemed to bore into Nicole. “Hold fast to your love. Do not let yourselves forget it, anymore than you would forget your own name.”

“Of course not,” Nicole agreed, feeling confused. “Whatever it takes.”

The Empress nodded, then took a step back. “Then go,” she said. “The Nightmare Vortex is located deep within the Mines of Memory, south of the Great Plains. Travel quickly--each hour another of Bastian’s fears is made flesh and set loose upon Fantasia. It is only a matter of time before all that is good about Fantasia is twisted and made corrupt by this plague of nightmares.”

Atreyu nodded. “We will go as quickly as we can.”

“Good,” said the Empress. “Good luck to both of you,” she said, then nodded to a handmaiden, who showed Nicole and Atreyu out of the throne room.


	2. Chapter 2

Nicole had never so much as seen a real live horse before, so she didn’t have much to compare when she entered the stables of the Ivory Tower, but she was pretty sure it was radically different than Earth stables, For one thing, she was pretty sure the stables back home didn’t have marble floors.

“Atreyu!” a female voice called out. Nicole turned to see a woman in heavy cloth overalls with short brown hair. 

“Doralys,” Atreyu greeted her warmly. “She’s the groom here,” he introduced her to Nicole.

“Nicole,” Nicole introduced herself, offering her hand to Doralys, who shook it firmly. 

“Nice to meet ye,” the groom said. “Ye’ll be needing a horse, I ken?”

Nicole looked around the stables uncertainly. “I’ve never ridden before,” she admitted. 

“She’ll need a swift mount,” Atreyu added. “We’re on a quest for the Childlike Empress, and time is of the essence.”

Doralys considered. “A horse that a beginner can ride, that’ll carry as fast as the wind. Aye, that’d be a rare beast indeed.” She smiled. “I’ve got just the horse.”

Nicole followed Doralys to a stall which housed a majestic silver-haired horse. “This here’s Silverwind. She’s the mare for ye.”

* * *

Riding Silverwind was like, well, nothing she had ever experienced before, which she supposed was to be expected during a journey to a fantastic world fashioned out of sheer imagination. Indeed, compared to some of the wonders she knew that Fantasia housed, she had to assume this would seem downright mundane. 

Still, with her hands holding tight to the reins and the wind blowing through her hair as she and Silverwind did their best to keep up with Atreyu and Artax as they made their way across the plains, she found her heart racing. This was the life. Bastian had extolled at length the pleasures of riding a luck dragon, but he had neglected to mention the simpler pleasures of a Fantasian horse.

She considered asking Mom and Barney for riding lessons when she got back home--assuming that Bastian’s nightmares didn’t end up engulfing both worlds, of course--but remembered that Bastian actually had had horseback riding lessons before Mom and Barney had gotten together, and he had found himself a considerably more clumsy rider on Earth than he was in Fantastica. 

After what had been, according to her watch, several hours of riding, the sun began to set, and Atreyu and Artax came to a stop, with Nicole and Silverwind pulling up next to them. “We should make camp here,” Atreyu suggested.

“Okay,” said Nicole. She didn’t have Atreyu’s outdoor survival skills, so she figured it was probably best to just follow his lead. She helped him set up two bedrolls and get a fire going, then watched the boy as he used his bow and arrow to kill two hares which they then turned into a stew. Some hard biscuit completed the meal which, despite its simple nature, tasted delicious after so many hours of hard riding.

“So,” said Atreyu as they sat next to each other in front of the fire. “You are Bastian’s sister, but do not share his parents?”

“That’s right,” Nicole agreed. “After Bastian’s mother died, his father married my mom.”

“And your father, he too is dead?”

Did they have divorce in Fantasia? “No,” she said, “but my mom and dad, they’re--well, they’re not together any more.”

Atreyu nodded to indicate he understood. “Then you are not his sister by blood.”

“No,” she admitted. “But he’s my brother all the same. What we share, it’s special.”

“I understand,” Atreyu said. “When the Magic Mirror Gate showed me my true self, it was Bastian that I saw. He sacrificed his most precious memory to bring me back from the dead. He is my brother without blood, too.”

Nicole nodded, then reached over and took his left hand in her right. “We’ll find him,” she said. “I promise.” 

He picked up a piece of biscuit with his right hand and bit into it. “I know,” he said at last once had had finished chewing and swallowed. “I just hope we’ll be able to save him when we do.”

She gave his hand a quick squeeze, but said nothing. They finished the meal in silence.

Nicole ate the rest of her stew with the spoon in her left hand.

* * *

“We should sleep now,” Atreyu suggested, when they had finished eating. “We have another hard day’s ride tomorrow before we reach my tribe’s hunting grounds.”

Nicole nodded, then paused at the bedrolls. Atreyu’s suit of loose soft leather was practically a pair of pyjamas, while the school clothes she was wearing, while not uncomfortable, were not exactly designed for sleeping. 

She eyed Atreyu wearily as she removed her sneakers, then took off her earrings and jewelry and put them inside her left shoe. Deciding that if Bastian was her brother and Atreyu was _his_ family, that made them family, she slipped her hands under her shirt to undo her bra. Atreyu raised an eyebrow as Nicole pulled the undergarment out from beneath her shirt but said nothing, not even when Nicole unzipped her jeans and began to pull them off. He simply got down on his bedroll and pulled the sheet over himself. “Sleep well, Nicole.”

She was more relieved than she wanted to admit when she was able to pull her own blanket over herself on her bedroll so that she was no longer exposed. “Thanks,” she said. “Good night.”

She closed her eyes, and a wave of exhaustion she hadn't known she had been feeling fell over her, and she was unconscious within seconds.


End file.
